The last part of the 20th Century and the first decade of the 21st has not been a very comfortable time for British Criminal Justice, at least in the eyes of the caring public. It was not the best time for expert witnesses and even less for those accused of child abuse or murder. The quality and independence of expert witnesses was being challenged and sometimes shown to be seriously lacking. The BBC’s programme, Rough Justice’ was flourishing and MOJO – the Miscarriage of Justice Organisation – was not short of cases. Neither exist today, Were they too revealing, or were problems in such short supply that they had to shut up shop ? Or, perhaps, did the public paymasters think it better for the viewing public to see how justice and forensic deduction was actually done in those TV soap operas? In the early 1990s along came, Geoforensics, promoted and pushed by certain academics. Not a new topic by any means, the use of geological evidence in one way or another is of long standing. One of its facets sold to the Police was a form of finger printing—not of human fingers— but of the soil environment which may have come into contact with footwear or clothing thus providing a ‘finger print’ of the complex association of natural and man-made components that make up soils in a particular location. Apparently it was claimed that the Police laboratories did not give this type of evidence the diligence it deserved . I entered this scene suddenly and unexpectedly at Christmas 1999 to help to critically assess evidence, put forward by the Prosecution in a case being heard in the Bristol Crown Court. This was the first in a series of murder trials between 2000 and 2010 that demonstrated the limitation of the concept “sold” to the Police. In the nitty-gritty of the battles between what the soil evidence claimed to show and what it actually demonstrated, chemical analysis , in conjunction with novel methods of preparing samples, combined with other lines of evidence, often played an important role in deciding the issues.

Christopher Jean’s Research Interests

Christopher Jeans is a self-supported consultant post-doctoral worker, and an affiliated member of the QPG. He is a research earth scientist specialising in the geology, petrology and geochemistry of sedimentary rocks and soils with extensive experience in their application to the needs of Industry and Society. Particularly in problems involving oil and gas exploration and production, the distribution and effects of clay minerals in the natural environment, and the use of forensic soil evidence in murder and other criminal trials. Research interests are the interrelationship between sediments/soils and clay mineralogy/geochemistry with special regard to the Mesozoic rocks of Europe (particularly the Upper Cretaceous Chalk) and New Zealand.

The event on Wednesday the 14th of December 2016 is free to members of The Stamford and District Geological Society. And for visitors a charge of £3 please. You can also apply for membership on the night.

One of the things that makes mammals special is our diverse forelimbs -- bat wings, whale flippers, gibbon arms, and cheetah legs have evolved to do different, specialized tasks. Scientists wanted to see where this mammalian trait started evolving, so they examined fossils from early mammal relatives to see when the upper arm bones started […]

A scientific study describes for the first time the submarine cartography of a high-latitude system in the IBIS channel, which covers tens of kilometers in the northern western area of the Barents Sea, in the Arctic Ocean. This channel is one of the few submarine valleys in polar latitudes that kept its geological architecture during […]

For the first time, researchers have simulated the process of surface roughness creation. This is a step forward in understanding the emergence of fractal characteristic of rough surfaces on many scales ranging from atomic to geological scales. The perspectives of their findings are far reaching. Controlling surface roughness is essential to the performance and durability […]

Cannot wait for #NatSCA2019 it's an ace line up of talks, the tours are around some of my favourite places, and well its 🇮🇪Dublin🇪🇺, just simply one of the best for culture, lovely people and good drinks! https://t.co/3ReQ2H3pRO

Harlan's ground sloth Paramylodon harlani with a baby.
Ground sloths are probably the most expressive of ancient beasts but they balance that being among the most bizzarre and fascinating of creatures.
#Paleoart #Sloth #Pleistocene #Iceage

We've decided to extend our #NatSCA2019 Early Bird deadline until 1st April. We don't want people to pay more for our Dublin conference because they're waiting to see what happens with #Brexit https://t.co/MyRArxzipY